I have Kindle e-books, Nook books, and iBooks, and just a few Kobo books--I only added that app last week. Most of them are living “in the cloud,” but each app does have a few books downloaded and stored on it, ready to read when the mood hits. And for ultimate mood-driven e-reading there’s Oyster, the “Netflix-for-ebooks” subscription service where all of the books live in the cloud and are streamed to your device as you read them, and where I already have a growing queue. I’ve used the iBooks app most because I like the “feel” of the reading experience in it best, but as the design of other reading apps starts to resemble it more, it’s harder to play favorites.
Every time I read on the iPad, it strikes me how pleasant it is and how much I like it. So why don’t I do it more often? I’ve got a couple of theories.
The flip side of not using a dedicated e-reader is that there are so many other things I can do on an iPad. It’s my favorite device for reading blogs, following social media, playing games, and editing photos, and it’s often a more convenient spot for writing and blogging than my laptop. And when it’s plugged in to charge up after all those tasks, I can’t use it for anything unless I sit right near the power source...and that’s usually when I decide to leave it to itself and walk away from it for a while. In all honesty, sometimes I just plain forget about using it to read books at all!
That tendency to forget is a major reason I haven’t gone for e-galleys in a big way. I have enough trouble keeping on top of the paper ARCs and review copies I get in the mail, and I keep those in obvious places where I can see them! I like the concept of e-galleys very much--not least because they spare you the problem of how to discard them after you read them--but without a solid system (one that includes reminders!) to track them, I’m afraid they’d be doomed to go unread and un-reviewed for much, much too long. Then again, I suppose I could dedicate one of the apps, most likely the Kindle, to e-galleys only--but since I’ve still got e-books in that app that I bought three years ago and haven’t read yet, it’s either much too late or way too soon to get that change in place.
I don’t usually add e-books (or audiobooks) to my LibraryThing collection until I’ve started reading them, which means the population of TBR Purgatory is consistently understated. The true number of “books I possess but haven’t yet read” is scattered across seven apps. Granted, they’re not taking up physical space, but they do seem to suffer from “Out-of-Sight, Out-of-Mind Syndrome,” and that’s a whole ‘nother source of TBR guilt. I’ve joined the E-book Reading Challenge for a few years running with the fairly modest goal of six e-books for the year--it should be easily reached, and yet I struggle with it every time. I’m being haunted by my “phantom TBR,” and I’m curious--how do you manage your reading between print and e-books without losing track of your library?
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